Gonsalves: Scientists learn to tell their story

A scientist and a science journalist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have teamed up to "open the drawbridge of the ivory towers" by teaching a course on writing about science for the lay public.

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By Sean Gonsalves

capecodtimes.com

By Sean Gonsalves

Posted Jan. 10, 2012 at 2:00 AM

By Sean Gonsalves
Posted Jan. 10, 2012 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

Colgate University assistant professor Kristin Pangallo has a Ph.D. in chemical oceanography. And by her own admission, she's "never really done any writing, trying to tell a story."

By "different," Pangallo doesn't mean the pop science writing found in the pages of Scientific American or Discover magazines. She's talking about the jargon-filled academic accounts published in journals for other scientists — the kind of articles impenetrable to nonscientists and often inscrutable even for scientists in other disciplines, given the highly specialized nature of scientific research these days.

Yet, she said, "scientific literacy is so critical to modern citizenship."

When Pangallo was enrolled in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/MIT Joint Program two summers ago, the noticeable knowledge gap between scientists and the general public convinced her to take an unusual course — "How not to write for peer-reviewed journals: Talking to everyone else."

Students who take the course don't get any academic credit for it. But the filled-to-capacity popularity of the class is evidence of a growing number of scientists who want to "open the drawbridge of the ivory towers," as WHOI scientist Chris Reddy explained it.

Reddy, one of the country's foremost experts on the science of oil spills, teaches the class with Lonny Lippsett, a longtime science journalist and the managing editor of WHOI's quarterly magazine, Oceanus (and, in full disclosure, the husband of Cape Cod Times copy editor Julie Lipkin).

Reddy has written dozens of articles and op-ed pieces for newspapers. His latest was recently published in WIRED magazine, making the case for why Mr. Spock of "Star Trek" fame is a good role model for scientists. He's testified before Congress to help inform lawmakers on public policy issues involving scientific intricacies. He did hundreds of interviews when the BP oil spill was bubbling to the top of the news surface.

But it wasn't until after he got a fellowship in 2006 to attend a "boot camp" for scientists looking to better their writing skills that the idea came to him. "I thought I could do something like that here in Woods Hole," he explained.

So he enlisted Lippsett to design and co-teach a course with him that would instruct their students in basic techniques of journalism so they could be better "ambassadors of science."

"We are not trying to create a bunch of Carl Sagans. We want them to understand that the audience beyond their colleagues — outside of the laboratory — has a different perspective and background. Ours is a whole separate culture," said Reddy, seated comfortably on the couch in one of the busy lab offices at WHOI's Quissett campus.

"Basically, what we teach them is to know your audience, be clear and stay on message."

For that, Lippsett's experience has proven invaluable.

"Scientists are trained to talk to other scientists. So they lay out an accumulation of data and write their conclusions. It's similar to journalism. But we introduced them to the inverted pyramid and how to start with the conclusion; the importance of metaphors and graphics. Believe it or not, it was an epiphany for many of them," Lippsett said.

"Ultimately, we want them to take part in society because science is of value to our society. But, if it doesn't get out into the society, it loses some of its value."

Students who completed the course give Reddy and Lippsett high marks.

"It's really amazing to have an entire course dedicated to celebrating the complexity of science and making it accessible. This isn't dumbing science down," Pangallo gushed.

In fact, she said, she uses some of the lessons learned in the college classes she now teaches.

"Once a semester I use an assignment with the idea: How do you communicate that to an educated lay audience? The students really enjoy that. They find it an exciting challenge," Pangallo said.

Besides learning various journal-isms, the class also teaches students the dynamics of newsrooms and deadlines — which not only helps them see "journalists are not the enemy — but helps them appreciate the speed at which news articles have to be researched and written. Most journalists don't have months to put an article together like scientists do. Journalists have to do it in a matter of hours," Reddy said.

Bottom line, Pangallo told me: "Everything we do is touched by science in some way — be it technology, the climate, medicine, law. And you can't make good decisions for yourself or public policy if you don't have an understanding of science."

Now, if you're searching for evidence the class is working, look no further than the special winter edition of Oceanus. From "The Latest Fashion in Bowhead Whale Songs" to the dynamics of "Powerful Currents in Deep-Sea Gorges," WHOI published 13 articles written by students who completed the course.

It's an example, Lippsett noted, of the responsibility scientists have "to explain research to taxpayers who ultimately provide the funds — whether those are senators or Joe the plumbers. (Scientists) not only could, but should, communicate."